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TOKYO (AP) - Japan's fertility rate rose last year for the first time in six years in 2006, while the number of suicides fell below the 30,000-case mark for the first time in four, the government said Wednesday.
The fertility rate — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — stood at 1.32 babies per woman in 2006, up from a record low of 1.26 in 2005, the Health Ministry said on its Web site.
"The latest figure alone doesn't indicate whether there is a turnaround in the country's recent trend of falling number of births," said Emi Sato of the vital statistic division with the Health Ministry.
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